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I will tell you who was the worst on the field it was the referee-Materazzi

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The Chennaoyin manager is keen put the season behind him...

Chennaiyin FC head coach Materazzi finished his 2016 Hero Indian Super League campaign with a 5-4 defeat against FC Goa at Fatorda’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on Thursday evening. In what was the highest-scoring game in the league’s history, the defending champions came a cropper despite leading thrice. In the post-match press conference, Materazzi, who reached the semi-finals in the first season and then went on to lift the trophy in Hero ISL 2015, expressed his disappointment at the result.

“Our whole season has been like this and I’m glad it is over. I never say who is the best on the pitch but I will tell you who was the worst on the field, it was the referee. The injury time was three minutes and we conceded in the 94th minute after a foul from Gregory [Arnolin]. You can still see the studmarks on Daniel Lalhlimpuia’s leg, so that makes me sad. We at least deserved a draw or a victory. But I want to congratulate Daniel, Jerry Lalrinzula and Anirudh Thapa for their performance,” Materazzi said.

Materazzi also explained as to what went wrong for the Super Machans this season. “What is different this season is that there are some points missing and it is clearly our fault, as you know we conceded late against Kolkata in the 86rd minute, against Pune in the 83rd minute, against Mumbai in the 88th minute, against NorthEast United deep in injury time. If you count it’s a lot of points that have been wasted. It is the reason why we didn’t qualify,” he said.

The Italian World Cup-winner also reiterated that more domestic players should be part of the starting elevens in the ISL as it was the only way forward for Indian football. “I think if a club does a really good job like our club does, if they [all clubs] do everything that they can to put in these really talented players [it will help Indian football]. If we didn’t push them out today, you wouldn’t have seen these young talented players, so I urge the whole ISL to bet on Indian talent. Overall, I’m not happy with the results of my club because I hate to lose. I think we have really good young talent in the team and we can start over again with these talented players,” he said.